Lesson Plan 
 

Candidate’s name: Greg Hager                                                                                  Course #:319

MA Licensure Sought: Elementary Education                                                        Grade Level: 4

Duration of the lesson: 60 minutes

Lesson Plan Title: Men of Mount Rushmore

Links to MA curriculum frameworks:

Standard 1: Students will identify the basic facts and main ideas in a text and use them as the basis for interpretation.

Standard 2: Students will organize ideas in writing in a way that makes sense for their purpose.

Standard 3: Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.

Specific Objectives:

1.      The student will have done research upon one of the presidents whose face appears on Mount Rushmore.

2.      They will be able to explain about that president to the rest of the class in a clear and organized speech.

3.      They will be able to answer basic questions asked on a sheet of paper about what the president has done and basic information of the worksheet.

4.      The student will have showed the ability to work on a computer and in a group with other students to obtain information of their president. Using reliable websites.

Materials and Technology needed:

Worksheet with basic questions about the presidents, a computer, books about the presidents

Connections across the Curriculum:

This lesson can correspond with English as the students need to write upon their president and make complete sentences to answer the questions. Students will also need to use their technological skills to access the internet to search for their president.

Instructional Sequence:

Introduction: 1. The teacher will ask the students what they know about Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The teacher will then give a brief explanation about Mount Rushmore, why it was created and who made it. (5-10 minutes)

Development: 2. The teacher will break the class up into four different groups with an even number of kids in each group.

3.  The groups will then be given a choice of what president they want to do. Each group will get one of the four presidents. So to decide what group gets to choose first there groups will be numbered 1-4 and the numbers will be put in a hat. Which number comes out first that groups gets to choose first then they will pick their president in sequential order.

4. Next the handout with questions regarding the Presidents will be handed out. It has standard questions like where they were born, what they did, family etc.

5. Groups will be allowed to go to a computer(s) and look up information on their president. They also can use books within the classroom that pertain to the presidents. About 15 minutes on the computer. The teacher should walk around to make sure that kids stay on task. They will be given a list of many appropriate websites that they can use.

6. The groups can talk about what they have learned and how they want to present the information to the class. They can use materials within the room to make posters, diagrams, etc to display their information. (15 minutes)

Closure: 7. The groups will display their information to the classroom. Each student should tell 2-3 facts about their president to the classroom. One of the facts should be an achievement that they accomplished.

8. While students relay their information other students should take notes on that president so that they have general information on each president.

Assessment: 1. Students will be assessed upon how well they complete the worksheet as to whether or not they answered each question in their entirety. Also they will be graded upon whether or not they used complete sentences.

2. The group will also be assessed informally upon how they represent their data to the rest of the class and the presentation they give orally. They can create a poster, song, draw, etc. to represent their data. This will be rated on a rubric of 1-4 with a 4 being they had a good presentation and gave all the information needed. 1 being that presented poorly and missed lots of the information.

Instructional Modifications or Accommodations:

Students who are physically impaired can read a book at their desk or have a laptop at their desk. Students who are blind can receive a book in Braille or use headphones to listen to text on the web.

Application of Course Content:

This connects to multiple intelligences as the students are allowed to create a way to explain their information on their president to the class. They can use any means necessary to do this, artistic poster, create a song, just write facts, etc. They can use their intelligence specialty along with others in the group to make their presentation. They can also use word smart, logic smart and picture smart when doing research as different websites provide different ways to view the information. When working to find information the kids can use self smart to look alone or people smart where they look with a partner.

It also connects to Blooms Taxonomy as it first asks the student to understand the information as they need to summarize what they learn and write a mini report on it. The student needs to analyze as they need to investigate the questions to find out what the president achieved. Lastly they need to create a presentation with the information they have. They could be just a simple poster or they can get very create and create a song, construct a diagram or any other means they can think of to display the information.